The End of Man
by Prospit Monarch
Summary: Don't look. Whatever you do don't look. That's all it takes to seal your fate! No matter what instinct tells you, no matter what sounds you might hear, Don't Look. It might just be the last thing you do. One-shot


To the Poor Soul who finds this message; Don't look. No matter what your mind tells you don't look. Once you lock eyes that is the end. Once It sees you there is no place safe enough and no one strong enough to stop It. Even the strongest Ghasts of the Nether cower in fear from Its' presence.

If you happen to stumble upon the remains of the Lost Souls of Scouting Crew 49 you have found the land where demons have walked and such gruesome deaths have transpired! Oh you poor traveler, I pray to Notch that you have found our remains during the daylight, for that seems to be the only thing It can not handle, if not; Don't Look. Don't you dare look even for a fraction of a second for that's all It needs!

There is not much time left for me so I shall give you a brief history of Scouting Crew 49, briefly codenamed Torchlight. We are a group of twenty brave men who had been hand-selected by the High Council of Notch. We were all selected at different times for over a course of eight months - they had to be certain we were good for the job. Some of my men were legendary names, ranging from skilled bowmen, to certified Creepers Hunters, and all the way down to the most skilled miners. We ranged far and wide in backgrounds, families, and homelands, but we had one thing so much in common - we had no idea what awaited us beyond the horizon.

That was our primary mission: to scout out the land beyond the setting sun and come back with our findings. It was such a privilege! To be picked to scout out future lands for our children and their children and then even their children after that! We were such greedy fools we didn't realize the danger they had put us in and those that spoke of this danger were hushed by the more optimistic crowd.

I...

...

They are nearing, I can feel the noises waiting outside, waiting for Them to come. I must hurry and write so people may know that this land is already taken.

We left as soon as time would allow and began our journey across the land filled with many things different to our own. What we saw I wish I could describe to you, you poor soul, but I must also think of what time you might have left as well. So, after travelling deserts, oceans, forest, and mountains we finally reached the first sign of what evil there was to come. What fools we were to not notice it.

We sent a scout to look around the area for undead and Creepers to make sure it was safe to make camp. After an hour of nothing the man returned, wide eyed and ecstatic as he mumbled on and on about a city just over the mountain slightly north of our position. Once we calmed him down we got more information out of him, and I don't blame the young lad for his excitement, it had been at least four months since we had left and we had nothing to show for it until that day. The information he provided was intriguing, and albeit slightly creepy.

He said there was a village made of three houses at the base of the mountain, made of wood and stone and one with a rudimentary chimney at its tip. There seemed to be the decayed remains of a wheat farm in the middle of the three houses, which were arranged in a triangle, and the broken remnants off a fence surrounding the village. There was no light or fire from the homes and there was a tree growing out of one of them.

Since the land we were in had not been officially explored until now we had deemed it a great discovery and we would investigate further in the morning. That night no one slept.

When the first signs of day broke over the horizon we quickly packed up and headed toward the young man's eager directions, which was quite easy since he was at the head of the line with me and my council. In fact even a few times we had to wait for the scout to return because he had gone so far ahead of our little band. But by then the village was in sight.

We reached the village by breakfast and by then even the eager scout had grown silent.

There was evil in the area; we could all feel it but we all lacked a proper name for such an omnipresent force. Even now as I write my final words I lack the one word that could surmised what we felt in that decayed ruin of a village. It was like someone was glaring at us through the broken windows of those houses; telling us to leave and never ever look back or we will pay for it with our lives. We felt like we were being stared down by a very angry being that wanted nothing more than to watch us bleed.

With fear in our eyes we swept the houses one-by-one, taking everything that was of value, which was close to nothing at all. And by nothing I mean nothing, they were ghostly bare with maybe a few scraps of wood hastily shoved into a far corner that had long since been destroyed.

You Poor Soul, if you have seen or found the same decimated village do not, I repeat, DO NOT go into the third house farthest from the mountains' base, for in there was a scene so vile it sickens me to write what I must.

We sent one of the Creeper Hunters we had into the building to scout it out. After a few seconds the resounding 'clear!' echoed out from the first room and as he went to open the door to the second room I caught a glimpse of his face before he let out such a scream of fear it still haunts me in my last moments of life. He reeled away from the door with both hands clutched tightly on his silver sword and, once a safe distance, turned and ran out of the house.

The man ran and ran until he was outside of the village and I have not seen him since but I have no doubt in my mind It has taken him and may Notch rest his soul if I am right, but for once I deeply pray I am wrong. Now in the man's hast to leave he had slammed the door shut behind him and the ruined wood couldn't take such a force and part of it fell away, revealing such a horrendous sight that we were all glued to its' presence and were unable to stop the man fleeing in terror behind us.

The room was perfectly normal, nothing had been knocked or disturbed, not even the bed that sat rotting in a corner nor the table that held scraps of wood. That was the eeriest part of the scene, the normality of everything else within that room, as if there had been no tree sprouting directly in the room's center. The tree, which appeared to have spawned during the man's death, was normal like all others back in our home land only this one had stuck...

A family had lived there. A man and women with two children among them.

The residence of the two other homes were never found but I ask you if you are walking in these forest do not look up, do not wonder what is in those branches, and for Notch's sake do not look.

...The whispering has started. They have gathered. Dear Notch, I only pray my end will be swift!

We ran across two more villages and each came up the same as the first. By the time we ran across the third village we didn't even go within fifty feet of its' maimed stone walls but even then the sign was clear. The nearly destroyed walls were made of solid stone at least five feet thick and ran a square around the village itself, with one end holding the broken signs of a door. Later that night someone had sworn they had seen the remains of a man within the stone walls, but as for the rest of us we were only concerned about the writing.

Etched deeply into the thick stones walls ran what I could only describe as a warning for us to get out, get out while we still could. I know I will be horribly punished for my headstrong actions in the life after but as for then I had only scoffed at my fearful team, asking how could they be scared by a poem designed for children, even if that poem was distorted into a dark warning.

My team ignored my words and they continued pouring over them late into the night after we made camp in a nearby cave.

**_Miner, Miner, hanging in a tree._**

**_L-E-A-K-I-N-G_**

**_First goes your nerves, then goes your mind_**

**_And along comes Enderman to break your spine._**

Later the following day we lost two men who had driven themselves mad with fear.

Two days after that we had a miner go on a rampage with his axe, maiming many and finally ending his own life.

The six who were maimed died shortly after, all of them with minor wounds.

I have been thinking about this area since the last man disappeared two days ago and still I have yet to describe what happened to my team. It was as if all feelings of fear and terror were amplified two-fold and each small cut or bruise turned into a life threatening problem within hours. Everything that could go wrong did; we ran out of food, our weapons broke, and our spirits and dream of coming homes heroes were crushed underfoot by some malevolent force. This force was the same as earlier, evil, with the mindset of wanting to watch us slowly die.

I have seen no face to this force and I hope to never lay eyes on it for I fear I will go mad instantly, if Its' followers have done this much to my men then it must be far more horrible than even the darkest demons of the Nether could ever dream of.

...

After two weeks of nothing the remaining fifteen men and myself, ready to turn and head back towards our homes, finally found our two missing miners. We were walking through an increasingly dense bit of forest with the moon as our guide when one man at the lead suddenly dropped his torch and screamed, pointing with a shaky hand toward our missing men as they hung on a branch above us.. Both were impaled upon a tree through their chests, their legs ripped off with only bloody stumps where they had once been, and their jaws had been broken to make it look like they were screaming in horrible agony as they hung.

No words exchanged between us, no signs or signals were needed, we only ran.

That night was a blur but there are some instances I remember clearly.

We had been out of the forest for some time now and had moved onto an open field we had passed a few days before when the whispers began. They were faint and mumbling, just out of reach with your hearing but loud enough to be known. The whispering grew like an oncoming wave until it breached our line with a cry of pure fear and pain from one of my Miners. His screams only lasted for a second before a horribly loud squelching-ripping sound pierced the night and caused it to fall still.

Then the whispers started again.

A horrid screaming of a man in the face of death followed by the sound of a wet zipper and then the screaming would stop.

As time passed shadows began to race at the sides of my vision. They were indistinct but naturally lengthy in nature with a light green glow near the top of the shadow. The image lasted for a second before it was gone and a scream resounded from behind. Again and again the shadows raced, some near and some far beyond the tree-line, but there was one time where I saw It, saw the beast. It had just taken down a man in front of me and I raced passed it, but as I ran parallel to it the Thing looked up at me with green eyes so alight with beastly anger and a frame that looked normal yet so _wrong_ at the same time. As I ran past the figure darker than a shadow on a moonless night, It continued to glare at me.

I still feel that glare boring into the back of my head, like the Beast is standing just outside this ruined home and looking in through the window. There are times I dare a look to see if my fear is real, but I cannot. I cannot look. Don't look. Don't Look.

...

This running from death went on for quite a while and by the time myself and three other men, whom names I have sadly forgotten, reached the stones walls etched with the poem of warning of Them. We were all out of breath and wide-eyed with shear shock of what had happened to us that we paid no attention to the skeletons lying slain around the village we were now holed in. One of us must have shut the Iron Gate behind us, because none of Them followed into the stone walls, but they were still nearby and oh they are still here, outside these stones walls, whispering in their unintelligible tones.

As crazy as it sounds I will swear to Notch they were humming. Humming a tune, a child's tune that we all know so well warped and twisted. They hummed their whispery song in tune with one another, the sound a large hum in the night air.

That night we huddled together not daring to shut our eyes for fear of the nightmares that would surface from Their song. Two of the men wept through the night and by dawn one of them had already passed, his eyes wide and the fear a scar on his face. Died of sheer fright.

Night fell again and the whispering song resumed its' melancholy cry again.

Dawn took a long time to arrive.

To keep ourselves busy I and one of the two remaining Miners dug graves for the man and the skeletons in the village. By the time we had finished the whispering had ceased, as well as all other sounds in the area. Nothing moved, nothing dared to even breathe. It was like everything was waiting for something.

Or they were hiding.

...

The sun set in a blaze of red glory that day, like it does after ash had filled the air from a great destruction. It signaled the end, the apocalypse, Armageddon, the omega.

That was only hours ago.

I must confess something.

I couldn't handle seeing my men; the men who had entrusted their lives in me go through what shouldn't be physically possible. They were ragged, tired, broken, and ready for death. I could not, would not, see them strung up in a tree by those horrible beasts of the night. I could not stand to see them die of their own fearful minds. They were men of honor that deserved good, long lives, not this! Not this gruesome demise!

...I had been placed to take care of them through thick and thin. I had sworn to bring them all back alive. I failed that duty to The Council, but as Notch as my witness I saved those men. Saved them from the Endermen. That's what I did. An Angel of Mercy to those two. They resisted at first, but in the end they will know I did what I had to out of mercy.

...

My time is up.

I must go and face the demons or I, too, will lose my sanity.

Here is my final report to the council:

The land you have sent us to is taken. It has been occupied for quite some time and we are but intruders on Their land. While the land may be rich we have no power, no weapon or machine that can fight for this place and assure us victory. We would be better off staying where we are and hope that They do not find us.

I want you to burn the records of this mission. Destroy every file and map that was constructed for this and detour every crew away from this land. It is not ours.

DO NOT, under any circumstances no matter how dire, tread upon this land. Whoever does shall have already sealed their fate.

...

...

And whatever every you do, _Don't Look._

* * *

><p>...Is it bad if I scared myself? Honestly, is that bad? The first night I wrote this I couldn't look out my window at all, same with the second night.<br>Is it honestly that scary or am I just weird, lol?

Really, I see the Endermen as some sort of Weeping Angels/Slenderman hybrid. That' just a scary thought.

SECONDLY CURSE YOU NOTCH!  
>I started this story the night before the 1.8 Trailer was released and I thought I was being oh so creative with the whole 'Don't Look' thing.<br>But no.  
>You had to use it.<br>/sadface

and last but not least...  
>OMG1.8I'MSOEXCITED.<br>ahem.  
>carry on.<p>

Enderman, Minecraft, and all the like belong to Mojang.

Oh, and:

The End of Man  
>The <strong>End<strong> of **Man**  
><strong>End Man<strong>  
><strong>End er Man<strong>  
><strong>Enderman<strong>

hurrr, i r creative


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